Depends on what you mean by "rational". My understanding is that many flat-earthers of course don't seriously believe the earth is flat, and the argument is made as a form of artistic expression, which is to say that it is meant to demonstrate that rationality can be abused and does not inherently lead to truth.
One of Asimov's I, Robot stories did a similar thing, with a robot on a space station making rational arguments against the existence of earth.
There are also religious extremists who believe that a flat earth is strongly implied in the Bible. If I remember correctly, they point to a passage in which someone is shown the whole world, and the “idea” is that obviously you can’t see the whole surface of a sphere at once. sigh
Plus yes, nutters, obligate contrarians, and conspiracy theorists.
That wasn’t my intent, but I’ve also never been on Reddit so wouldn’t know. I didn’t realize that a religious precept from the 6th century was still so hot as to be flaming either.
That's silly. This is God we're talking about, if God wants to show you the entire surface of the earth at once I'm sure they can pull it off. Probably still has the blueprints if nothing else.
I’m with you, but religious extremists and rationality are like oil and napalm. It always struck me as odd that for religious types, “because god said so” isn’t enough. I guess it highlights a difference between just faith and scriptural literalism.
